MUNICH, GERMANY

our trip to germany was short & sweet & i've got a lot to share about it with you. so be prepared for a lot of writing, a ton of pictures, & multiple posts. cause i can't put this all into one! We’ve been back from Germany for two days now & I’m read to go back. If you have never been to munich, or Germany in general, go. It is so amazing. Austin & I loved everything from the architecture, to the food, to the people, to the landscape, to the Christmas markets…naturally. We left for Germany Saturday morning & came back Christmas eve (Wednesday) night. We spent two full days in munich, a day going to the neuschwanstein castle & a day in Nuremberg. I’m pretty confident in saying that going to munich in time for the christkindlmarkts was one of the best decisions we have ever made. I had never seen anything so magical as these markets.

as soon as we were in munich Austin & I were in love with it, I don’t know if a large part of it had to do with all of the Christmas cheer, but something about the city really struck us. It’s a big city but it just seemed so quaint & cute, so colorful & really fun. Plus, it’s insanely clean. I couldn’t get over how clean it was.. haha.

Our first night there we went straight to the christkindlmarkts in marienplatz plaza, one of munichs main plazas, where there were rows of markets set up beneath the new town hall & a gigantic Christmas tree filled with white lights. All of the booths were decorated & overflowing ornaments, nativities, dolls, candy, cookies, pottery & more. The food at the markets was aaaaaamazing. So many bratwursts! Austin probably ate about 7 a day, while I managed maybe 3 with a couple waffles or crepes thrown in there as well. & cedar was digging the gingerbread cookies that were sold everywhere. We couldn’t get enough. & they had booths of spiced hot wine, hot chocolate, & non alcoholic spiced hot wine, which was so good. If you know what wassle is (I thought this was a common Christmas drink, but the older I get the less common I think it is) or tastes like, it is similar to that. Plus, the drinks come in adorable mugs that have Christmas pictures or say the city name or whatever. You pay a down payment on the mug & after you drink all of your drink, you return it & get the money back. Or if you’re like me, you can just keep the mug. I figure it will go great with all of other mugs.

Our second day there we did a little more than juuuust the Christmas markets, even though I could have gone back in a heart beat with not problem at all, but Austin & I thought we should see more than just marienplatz. We walked around the city, went into smaller markets & then went to the English garden, where we spent the majority of our day. The English garden is pretty much what it sounds like, but it’s huge. The garden is bigger than hyde park in London, & central park in new york. It’ has paths going in every direction & despite the incredibly cold temperatures, people were out riding bikes, playing Frisbee, walking their dogs, sitting on benches reading or talking & musicians playing throughout the park. There is a stream that flows through the garden into the park that people have discovered they can surf at. The stream has a constant wave going & multiple surfers take turns giving it their best shot. It was so cool to see & it looked freezing! We walked all over the garden before finding a smaller & extremely adorable Christmas market. The market was set up with walls made of Christmas tree branches surrounding it, lights strung up, huge wooden stumps subbing as tables & horse drawn carriage rides around the markets & a garden, which cedar was obsessed with watching.

All three of us were in awe of the markets & with munich. It was all so lively, so fun & definitely worth going to. i hope you all had a merry christmas & happy holidays!